World Trade Center Steel at the Heart of Tri-C Memorial

If it's sunny at 10:28 a.m. on Sept. 11, a sculpture at the First Responders Memorial on Tri-C's Western Campus will cast a shadow that aligns with a strip of darkened pavement jutting out from its base. That strip represents the shadow cast by the World Trade Center's North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001 — moments before the tower, struck by a hijacked plane, collapsed.

A length of World Trade Center steel is suspended at the center of the sculpture. A plaque at the site, located outside the KeyBank Public Safety Training Center, explains that the sculpture pays tribute to emergency workers who responded in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks and is dedicated to all first responders, past, present and future.

But Bob Szabo doesn't need the plaque to understand the sculpture's significance. The retired firefighter and former Tri-C Fire Academy instructor remembers how first responders across the nation were affected when hijackers seized four planes, two of which struck New York City's Twin Towers and one the Pentagon; the fourth crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

That experience strengthened Szabo's desire to ensure those who gave their lives that day would always be honored.

Szabo was a lieutenant at the Cleveland Heights Fire Department on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

"We usually had roll call about 7:30 a.m.," Szabo said. "Right around 8, we were getting ready to do a building inspection, and someone had the TV on. That's when the second plane hit. Everybody I knew wanted to go and help. They were trying to contact New York, but they were overwhelmed."

Nearly 3,000 people died that day, including 343 firefighters and 71 New York City law enforcement officers.

In the aftermath, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the World Trade Center, removed tons of artifacts from the debris — twisted steel, wrecked taxis and emergency vehicles, and remnants of an Alexander Calder sculpture installed in the early 1970s. The material was stored in a massive space at Hangar 17 at JFK Airport in Queens.

Some of the relics were slated for what would become the 9/11 memorial and museum in Manhattan. But others were offered to places that wanted pieces for their own tributes at fire departments, schools, museums and other organizations. In the end, pieces were distributed in every U.S. state and 10 countries.

Szabo, who taught at Tri-C's Fire Training Academy and helped develop a firefighter training program for high school students, submitted a request and was approved to receive three pieces of steel.

"The pieces aren't huge — maybe 4 feet long," Szabo said. "The only caveat was we had to go to New York to get them. Then I found out that the Macedonia Fire Department also wanted a piece, but they wanted a big piece. So, they were going with a flatbed truck."

In 2010, a convoy of police cruisers and fire trucks from Ohio traveled to New York to retrieve bits of history.

Szabo donated one each to the Cleveland Heights Fire Department and the Western Reserve Fire Museum in Cleveland.

Members of the graduating class of the high school training program presented the third one to Tri-C's Fire Academy. It sat in the engine house for years, according to Ted Huffman, who served as Fire Academy chief at the time.

Eventually, as part of a capital improvements plan at the College, Ohio sculptor Dale Johnson was commissioned to develop artwork incorporating the beam. Funded by the Ohio Percent for Art program, the sculpture was unveiled in 2017 during the dedication of the memorial plaza.

In his proposal for the sculpture, Johnson described the design. Nine slabs of limestone, separated and supported by steel pins, were textured with hammers and chisels.

"The result," Johnson wrote, "will be a sculpture of singular humanness, a proper homage to those individuals willing to risk their own lives in service to others."

The steel pins were rotated on each level, creating a "spiral staircase" of sorts, which represented the stairways emergency responders ascended in their rescue efforts. The World Trade Center relic is suspended on a steel swivel from the top slab — protected by the slabs but visible through the spaces in between.

Each stone was incised with silhouettes of badges from emergency departments across Ohio. The fourth slab from the ground features badges from New York.

In his proposal and the execution of the design, Johnson emphasized materials that were selected not only for aesthetic qualities but also for their reliability.

"The finished work should be maintenance-free and may be expected to last as long as the school exists," Johnson wrote.

Ultimately, longevity is what Szabo was aiming for, too. Over the years, he has noticed that when the anniversary of 9/11 rolls around, it doesn't always command the attention it deserves.

"There were some years it just didn't seem to be that big of a deal anymore," Szabo said. His hope, then, is that the sculpture, with the relic at its center, will prompt visitors "just to take a couple minutes and remember the firefighters who ended up giving their lives that day."

9/11 Remembrance Ceremony
9:45-10:10 a.m. Sept. 11
Western Campus

September 10, 2026